This application relates to a testing system, and more particularly to a back-pressure and impedance tester for use with ink jet cartridges.
Ink jet printers have been commercially successful forms of printers that are used widely by individual consumers and business users. Typically, ink cartridges are selectively removed from a printer once they are spent or empty and replaced with a new cartridge, remanufactured cartridge, or the removed cartridge is refilled or replenished with ink. Consumers expect and printers require that the cartridges (new, remanufactured, or refilled) operate effectively with the printer. Thus, it is important that the installed ink cartridge exhibit similar fluid delivery characteristics when compared with the original ink cartridge so that the consumer does not encounter a different delivery of ink to the printer.
Heretofore, it has been very difficult to analyze the effects or changes made to fluid delivery systems without building and testing many sample ink cartridges. Such trials were time consuming and many times it is difficult to interpret the data. Such trials were necessary, however, to analyze the effect of component changes in the cartridge and how it impacted on fluid delivery, i.e., ink. Thus, a need has arisen to accurately measure the effect of component changes to a fluid delivery system. This, in turn, is expected to yield a cost and manpower savings if such trials can be conducted more efficiently.
Thus, not only is a reduced cost for a replacement ink cartridge required, but in addition the consumer wants to be assured that the replacement ink cartridge operates in substantially the same manner as that of the OEM product. After-market replacements have developed over the years for various ink cartridges. As a new style of cartridge enters the market, however, it is necessary for the remanufacturers to undertake a new round of testing and develop a data base of information relating to size, specification, materials, and fluid performance in order to control fluid delivery to the printer. This test data allows a quicker, more effective benchmarking of testing and developing ink jet cartridges.